The Willow Tree

• Audrey Hughan, Grade 4, Ocean Grove Primary School
• Poetry
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

Vivid sunshine reflects from the water onto this astonishing masterpiece.
A lethargic canopy of leaves is laid before my eyes.
Paper thin leaves sway with the wind while the tree trunk is concreted to
The luscious grassy ground.
Sap oozes from the rough textured bark.
The denticulated leaf edges are as rough as a saw-blade.
This weeping willow tree has a fresh aroma that lingers around the tree,
you can smell the eucalyptus leaves from abaft.
The willow could pose as a sky scraper in the dense heart of the city,
a height of up to 80 feet tall.
The branches are a stairwell to the clouds, they also stretch out as a network of streets,
weaving and navigating their way from the trunk,
leading out to various suburbs housing birds and possums, bugs and snakes.
Hedges of leaves isolate birds from bugs, possums from snakes.
A friendly environment lies in that spectacular Willow tree.